How many book one or two nights in a regular hotel before DVC stay?

[Cruelladeville]

I have nearly 500 pts, but that doesn't matter, I still pay cash for Friday and Saturday nights. I can get another 5 nights Sun-Thurs. if I'm willing to pay cash for two nights, so it's worth it to me. I usually get the AP cash rate for whatever room I'm going to use my pts for anyway, so I don't have to move. Last summer, though, AKL had AP rates of $127 per night, so I spent 5 nights at OKW and 4 nights at AKL, and it was our best trip ever! I love getting a good deal

 

[littlestar]

Thanks for all the replies.

Before we joined DVC we only went to Disney for about three to four days a year. We took a long vacation at the Beach and then saved our "treat" for a short stay at a Disney resort.

Buying DVC has changed our vacation habits. From the way it looks now, we'll be going to Disney two to three times a year (or maybe once a year at Hilton Head or Vero) and the rest at Disneyworld. We definitely plan to take more vacations since buying DVC! So Disney will still get our three to four days of booking a regular hotel night on cash for the weekends, plus DVC to boot. I saw a post the other day where someone was wondering if DVC takes away the bookings from Disney's regular hotels. In our case I don't think it will.

 

[cindy_k]

We are going to try this for our April trip next year. Its Easter week so the points are very high for the weekend (100 a night).
But since we want to stay for both weekends we are going to pay for rooms on site.

We are looking at PO Riverside for the first Weekend, OKW for the 5 nights and then AKL Conceirge to end the vacation.

It will be an interesting experiment.

Have Fun!

Cindy

 

[KyMattDisney]

we are playing on doing our Friday/Sat. stay at AKL and then go over to OKW....my question.....how do you handle the passes? Can you get one length of stay passes or do you need to switch? Thanks

 

[Boardwalk Garry]

We'll stay the first night somewhere else if we can get a good rate and especially if it is a Friday or Saturday so we can save our DVC points. Sometimes though, we don't want to be bothered by changing rooms (we have a 3 and 1 yr old--lots of stuff).

 

[janner]

Count us among those who don't want to spend the extra points for weekend nights at DVC. DP Maddy and I don't mind changing hotels, especially since we can do early check-in and store our luggage during the day. Actually, we find that moving to a new hotel is kind of like having yet another vacation. Also, we like staying different places that have proximity to different parks, and then we concentrate on those nearby parks for those days.
We always start out at All Stars. The rates are good, the food court is wonderful, and the rooms are fine for those first couple of days when we are recovering from flying cross country. Last year we had a huge flight delay and totally missed our first night at WDW. I called ahead to All Stars to notify them and see if we could avoid being charged for the missed night. They were great about it. But, even if they hadn't decided to forgive the first night charge, at least we wouldn't have been out of pocket very much and we wouldn't have lost points, like we would have if we were going directly to our DVC place.
Hope this works for you.
Janet

 

[d-r]

Actually, we view this as a positive. One of our concerns about joining DVC was that we would "miss" staying in favorite resorts like the polly. But, you can plan a stay that really makes the best of both worlds. Say you are staying during the week at boardwalk or beach club, then you can stay the weekend at polly or contemporary. That way, you can go to MK when the hours are longer on the weekend (we go during off season) and have that easy transportation, and enjoy the feeling of the MK resorts, then switch over to the epcot area during the week, when epcot and MGM are open later. Or, you can spend the weekend at AKL - honestly, I think this is one of the best ways to enjoy AKL. Go for a couple of nights, focus on the AK park while you are there, have a couple of great meals at jiko and boma, then go to the epcot area for the week. Some day, we will do the universal hotels for a weekend and go see those parks during that time with the fotl access.

I think it depends on how you enjoy your vacation - if you want to get to one place and camp out and unpack and take it easy, fine. If you want to get to enjoy two places and the plusses that this offers, fine. I don't think that defeats the purpose of DVC - the purpose of DVC is to give you flexibility.

DR